Is Wife Beating Allowed in Islam?

As a conscious and conscientious adult woman, I do not see my brain being fully functional when faced with verbal or physical abuse─abuse can cause short-term and long-term symptoms that heal slowly and sometimes the victim stays “destroyed” in many ways. This “destruction” does not improve intellect at all and neither does it make the victim’s team more functional. The first thing you should feel after realizing that you have been abused and mistreated is withdrawal and a strong need to escape. If I were a housewife who is being beaten, I would run away and have an affair with someone more caring─you know what I mean.

Mainstream media, governments, and officials started picking on Muslims and Islam after 9/11. Perhaps, they were hoping that this abuse will be met with silence because “abuse causes silence by slowly numbing the minds”─maybe, they don’t know about the health benefits of Aloe Vera. But, Muslims continued to speak out and stand out from the crowd─I commend them for this effort. Despite all these efforts, many folks will still willingly provide you with misleading information such as Islam allows cruel things like wife-beating. I remember reading Prophet Mohammad’s (peace be upon him) saying, “How can you hit your wife and then sleep with her?” When it comes to verses regarding treatment of one’s wife, the real contention is “bad translations”. Islam Awareness provides a thorough explanation by showing how different opinions have been created through varying translations. While mainstream media continues to bombard the Muslims by using ideas that aren’t really being taught by Islam, it ignores or avoids focusing on relevant news from other countries such as Russia’s move to decriminalize wife-beating─Do you know that in the movie Anna Karenina, the protagonist alludes to her country’s misogynist system by saying, “Your husband is a saint and we must all cherish him for Russia’s sake”. To make matters worse, most of us are never being told about how some Islamic organizations like the Canadian Counsel of Muslim Women are offering workshops to engage boys/men to end domestic abuse─these charity organizations don’t have sufficient budget and they still strive to provide clarity.